Caesaria

VII

Amelia hadn't eaten or slept.

She read to her daughter. Sometimes talked to her, but mostly read. She was reading, "End of Watch", by a man named Stephen King -- she'd seen his name and visage in a few of her Old World books. There were many odd things about the Old World stories that left her scratching her head -- cell phones, televisions, computers, the works -- but it was something to keep them both occupied. Even as Lucy lie unconscious.

Her husband and chief, Carter, visited as often as he could. Ever since they'd brought back the stranger, he'd been trying to quell concerns of a looming invasion. In a way, Amelia was furious at him; this was their daughter. She didn't give a damn what people were worried about, Lucy was fighting for her life. 

But she understood. In fact, she was usually one of the more paranoid among the Georgian leaders. But with Lucy, their proud, fierce daughter, a shield-maiden, a warrior, someday a spear-wife or a clan mother, fading away in this stuffy room...

What about all the other mothers? The free mothers, who had hoped to see their daughters live long and happy, only to watch them be dragged away in shackles? Raped, beaten and killed by the men I'd once thought of as my own?

Why is my daughter any more important? Hmm?

She felt her freckled skin redden at her thoughts. Her gut began to churn, the guilty memories surfacing. She had to open the windows. Yes. Fresh air. That would do her good. Both of them. Amelia threw all the windows wide open, the wind chimes in the garden below ringing away the silence. She leaned out of the window sill, feeling the cool morning air on her perspiring skin, in her curly brown hair. She felt like she could pretend things weren't as dire as they were, pretend Lucy was only a babe having her afternoon nap. That her memories were merely dreams. Anything to kill the image of her daughter's corpse, of her birch-wrapped body in that flaming boat, drifting out onto the still morning waves of the Great Lake.

Anything to erase the memories of those she killed.

She shook it off. She picked up the book, and began to read aloud. She only made it a paragraph in before she slammed the book down next to her day-old water, cup lined with bubbles. She hadn't touched it.

Amelia had blamed her own son for what had happened. As he'd told the story of Lucy's fall to her and Carter, she'd lashed out with such rage, like the mother goddess possessed her. How could Jackson have been so stupid, taking his little sister to those falls? There were no ghosts, she knew better than that. But the current had a mind of its own. The strength of its waters could fell giants.

Carter had been the one to silence her. She had been about to blast him as well, but the truth was plain with his simple, "You are unworthy."

Yes, Amelia thought. I am. Unworthy of motherhood.

And then, she wept. Not because she felt sorry for herself, no, but because she knew the truth of her thoughts. She did not deserve motherhood, no matter how much she had wanted it. The things she had done, the world she had built...

Gaia's grace, I can't think about it. I can't. I won't.

Gods, she loved her children. Jackson, Lucy — the lights of her life. With all her heart and soul, did Amelia love them, more than she loved Carter, and certainly more than she loved herself. There was nothing in the world that could compare to the honour and joy that was motherhood. Nor was there any shame that could compare to her own for disrespecting it.

And here I am, blaming my living son for my dying daughter. I say my daughter was fathered by a monster. Just who is the monster, then? Amelia's brown eyes fell to her freckled wrist. Upon it, the brand of her master. Her husband had offered to cut it, burn it out of her. But she'd never agreed. She stared at it in her spare moments, traced the jagged M in the darkness of the night. It was a delicate moment, one that could never be interrupted, lest past be mingled with present. If Carter moved in bed, she would jerk away like it was him. If somebody called her attention, she would expect a slap, a beating, worse. She would forget those days were over, and the memories became reality. Amelia would relive the night she'd received his hellish mark, the time when she had survived under a different name.

She gazed at her daughter. At her snowy, bruised skin, and her curly raven hair. The curls, Amelia had given her. But the colour... her daughter's face...  that had been her father's gift. When Amelia looked in her daughter's eyes, she saw the eyes of the monster himself. That brilliant green. She saw his terrible and great beauty, his strength and pride and wicked genius. She remembered the man who'd held dominion over her for what felt like a hundred years. And although she always told herself that the same evil, the same horrors, did not lurk within her daughter, that her soul was free of such things...

Is it? And is it worth the risk?

The breeze, the sun, it was all doing nothing for her. The book was doing even less. She left the room breathlessly, only for a moment. And then, sinking to the floor behind the door, she prayed. Prayed that whatever force that ruled the universe, Gaia, Jupiter, the Spirits, if any, could ever erase such terrible thoughts from her mind. As she had many times before.